Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch

by Immanuel Kant

1795

PERPETUAL PEACE

Whether this satirical inscription on a Dutch innkeeper's sign upon which a
burial ground was painted had for its object mankind in general, or the rulers
of states in particular, who are insatiable of war, or merely the philosophers
who dream this sweet dream, it is not for us to decide. But one condition the
author of this essay wishes to lay down. The practical politician assumes the
attitude of looking down with great self-satisfaction on the political theorist
as a pedant whose empty ideas in no way threaten the security of the state,
inasmuch as the state must proceed on empirical principles; so the theorist is
allowed to play his game without interference from the worldly-wise statesman.
Such being his attitude, the practical politician — and this is the
condition I make — should at least act consistently in the case of a
conflict and not suspect some danger to the state in the political theorist's
opinions which are ventured and publicly expressed without any ulterior
purpose. By this clausula salvatoria the author desires formally and
emphatically to deprecate herewith any malevolent interpretation which might be
placed on his words.

SECTION I

CONTAINING THE PRELIMINARY ARTICLES FOR PERPETUAL PEACE
AMONG STATES

1. "No Treaty of Peace Shall Be Held Valid in Which There Is Tacitly
Reserved Matter for a Future War";

Otherwise a treaty would be only a truce, a suspension of hostilities but
not peace, which means the end of all hostilities — so much so that even
to attach the word "perpetual" to it is a dubious pleonasm. The
causes for making future wars (which are perhaps unknown to the contracting
parties) are without exception annihilated by the treaty of peace, even if they
should be dug out of dusty documents by acute sleuthing. When one or both
parties to a treaty of peace, being too exhausted to continue warring with each
other, make a tacit reservation (reservatio mentalis) in regard to old
claims to be elaborated only at some more favorable opportunity in the future,
the treaty is made in bad faith, and we have an artifice worthy of the
casuistry of a Jesuit. Considered by itself, it is beneath the dignity of a
sovereign, just as the readiness to indulge in this kind of reasoning is
unworthy of the dignity of his minister.

But if, in consequence of enlightened concepts of statecraft, the glory of
the state is placed in its continual aggrandizement by whatever means, my
conclusion will appear merely academic and pedantic.

2. "No Independent States, Large or Small, Shall Come under the
Dominion of Another State by Inheritance, Exchange, Purchase, or Donation"

A state is not, like the ground which it occupies, a piece of property
(patrimonium). It is a society of men whom no one else has any right to
command or to dispose except the state itself. It is a trunk with its own
roots. But to incorporate it into another state, like a graft, is to destroy
its existence as a moral person, reducing it to a thing; such incorporation
thus contradicts the idea of the original contract without which no right over
a people can be conceived.1

Everyone knows to what dangers Europe, the only part of the world where this
manner of acquisition is known, has been brought, even down to the most recent
times, by the presumption that states could espouse one another; it is in part
a new kind of industry for gaining ascendancy by means of family alliances and
without expenditure of forces, and in part a way of extending one's domain.
Also the hiring-out of troops by one state to another, so that they can be used
against an enemy not common to both, is to be counted under this principle; for
in this manner the subjects, as though they were things to be manipulated at
pleasure, are used and also used up.

For they incessantly menace other states by their readiness to appear at all
times prepared for war; they incite them to compete with each other in the
number of armed men, and there is no limit to this. For this reason, the cost
of peace finally becomes more oppressive than that of a short war, and
consequently a standing army is itself a cause of offensive war waged in order
to relieve the state of this burden. Add to this that to pay men to kill or to
be killed seems to entail using them as mere machines and tools in the hand of
another (the state), and this is hardly compatible with the rights of mankind
in our own person. But the periodic and voluntary military exercises of
citizens who thereby secure themselves and their country against foreign
aggression are entirely different.

The accumulation of treasure would have the same effect, for, of the three
powers — the power of armies, of alliances, and of money — the third
is perhaps the most dependable weapon. Such accumulation of treasure is
regarded by other states as a threat of war, and if it were not for the
difficulties in learning the amount, it would force the other state to make an
early attack.

4. "National Debts Shall Not Be Contracted with a View to the
External Friction of States";

This expedient of seeking aid within or without the state is above suspicion
when the purpose is domestic economy (e.g., the improvement of roads, new
settlements, establishment of stores against unfruitful years, etc.). But as an
opposing machine in the antagonism of powers, a credit system which grows
beyond sight and which is yet a safe debt for the present requirements —
because all the creditors do not require payment at one time — constitutes
a dangerous money power. This ingenious invention of a commercial people
[England] in this century is dangerous because it is a war treasure which
exceeds the treasures of all other states; it cannot be exhausted except by
default of taxes (which is inevitable), though it can be long delayed by the
stimulus to trade which occurs through the reaction of credit on industry and
commerce. This facility in making war, together with the inclination to do so
on the part of rulers--an inclination which seems inborn in human nature —
is thus a great hindrance to perpetual peace. Therefore, to forbid this credit
system must be a preliminary article of perpetual peace all the more because it
must eventually entangle many innocent states in the inevitable bankruptcy and
openly harm them. They are therefore justified in allying themselves against
such a state and its measures.

5. "No State Shall by Force Interfere with the Constitution or
Government of Another State";

For what is there to authorize it to do so? The offense, perhaps, which a
state gives to the subjects of another state? Rather the example of the evil
into which a state has fallen because of its lawlessness should serve as a
warning. Moreover, the bad example which one free person affords another as a
scandalum acceptum is not an infringement of his rights. But it would be
quite different if a state, by internal rebellion, should fall into two parts,
each of which pretended to be a separate state making claim to the whole. To
lend assistance to one of these cannot be considered an interference in the
constitution of the other state (for it is then in a state of anarchy) . But so
long as the internal dissension has not come to this critical point, such
interference by foreign powers would infringe on the rights of an independent
people struggling with its internal disease; hence it would itself be an
offense and would render the autonomy of all states insecure.

6. "No State Shall, during War, Permit Such Acts of Hostility Which
Would Make Mutual Confidence in the Subsequent Peace Impossible: Such Are the
Employment of Assassins (percussores), Poisoners (venefici), Breach of
Capitulation, and Incitement to Treason (perduellio) in the Opposing
State";

These are dishonorable stratagems. For some confidence in the character of
the enemy must remain even in the midst of war, as otherwise no peace could be
concluded and the hostilities would degenerate into a war of extermination
(bellum internecinum). War, however, is only the sad recourse in the
state of nature (where there is no tribunal which could judge with the force of
law) by which each state asserts its right by violence and in which neither
party can be adjudged unjust (for that would presuppose a juridical decision);
in lieu of such a decision, the issue of the conflict (as if given by a
so-called "judgment of God") decides on which side justice lies. But
between states no punitive war (bellum punitivum) is conceivable,
because there is no relation between them of master and servant.

It follows that a war of extermination, in which the destruction of both
parties and of all justice can result, would permit perpetual peace only in the
vast burial ground of the human race. Therefore, such a war and the use of all
means leading to it must be absolutely forbidden. But that the means cited do
inevitably lead to it is clear from the fact that these infernal arts, vile in
themselves, when once used would not long be confined to the sphere of war.
Take, for instance, the use of spies (uti exploratoribus). In this, one
employs the infamy of others (which can never be entirely eradicated) only to
encourage its persistence even into the state of peace, to the undoing of the
very spirit of peace.

Although the laws stated are objectively, i.e., in so far as they express
the intention of rulers, mere prohibitions (leges prohibitivae), some of
them are of that strict kind which hold regardless of circumstances (leges
strictae) and which demand prompt execution. Such are Nos. 1, 5, and 6.
Others, like Nos. 2, 3, and 4, while not exceptions from the rule of law,
nevertheless are subjectively broader (leges latae) in respect to their
observation, containing permission to delay their execution without, however,
losing sight of the end. This permission does not authorize, under No. 2, for
example, delaying until doomsday (or, as Augustus used to say, ad calendas
Graecas) the re-establishment of the freedom of states which have been
deprived of it — i.e., it does not permit us to fail to do it, but it
allows a delay to prevent precipitation which might injure the goal striven
for. For the prohibition concerns only the manner of acquisition which is no
longer permitted, but not the possession, which, though not bearing a requisite
title of right, has nevertheless been held lawful in all states by the public
opinion of the time (the time of the putative acquisition).2.

SECTION II

CONTAINING THE DEFINITIVE ARTICLES
FOR PERPETUAL PEACE AMONG STATES

The state of peace among men living side by side is not the natural state
(status naturalis); the natural state is one of war. This does not
always mean open hostilities, but at least an unceasing threat of war. A state
of peace, therefore, must be established, for in order to be secured
against hostility it is not sufficient that hostilities simply be not
committed; and, unless this security is pledged to each by his neighbor (a
thing that can occur only in a civil state), each may treat his neighbor, from
whom he demands this security, as an enemy.3

FIRST DEFINITIVE ARTICLE FOR PERPETUAL PEACE

"The Civil Constitution of Every State Should Be
Republican";

The only constitution which derives from the idea of the original compact,
and on which all juridical legislation of a people must be based, is the
republican.4 This constitution is
established, firstly, by principles of the freedom of the members of a society
(as men); secondly, by principles of dependence of all upon a single common
legislation (as subjects); and, thirdly, by the law of their equality (as
citizens). The republican constitution, therefore, is, with respect to law, the
one which is the original basis of every form of civil constitution. The only
question now is: Is it also the one which can lead to perpetual peace?

The republican constitution, besides the purity of its origin (having sprung
from the pure source of the concept of law), also gives a favorable prospect
for the desired consequence, i.e., perpetual peace. The reason is this: if the
consent of the citizens is required in order to decide that war should be
declared (and in this constitution it cannot but be the case), nothing is more
natural than that they would be very cautious in commencing such a poor game,
decreeing for themselves all the calamities of war. Among the latter would be:
having to fight, having to pay the costs of war from their own resources,
having painfully to repair the devastation war leaves behind, and, to fill up
the measure of evils, load themselves with a heavy national debt that would
embitter peace itself and that can never be liquidated on account of constant
wars in the future. But, on the other hand, in a constitution which is not
republican, and under which the subjects are not citizens, a declaration of war
is the easiest thing in the world to decide upon, because war does not require
of the ruler, who is the proprietor and not a member of the state, the least
sacrifice of the pleasures of his table, the chase, his country houses, his
court functions, and the like. He may, therefore, resolve on war as on a
pleasure party for the most trivial reasons, and with perfect indifference
leave the justification which decency requires to the diplomatic corps who are
ever ready to provide it.

In order not to confuse the republican constitution with the democratic (as
is commonly done), the following should be noted. The forms of a state
(civitas) can be divided either according to the persons who possess the
sovereign power or according to the mode of administration exercised over the
people by the chief, whoever he may be. The first is properly called the form
of sovereignty (forma imperii), and there are only three possible forms
of it: autocracy, in which one, aristocracy, in which some associated together,
or democracy, in which all those who constitute society, possess sovereign
power. They may be characterized, respectively, as the power of a monarch, of
the nobility, or of the people. The second division is that by the form of
government (forma regiminis) and is based on the way in which the state
makes use of its power; this way is based on the constitution, which is the act
of the general will through which the many persons become one nation. In this
respect government is either republican or despotic. Republicanism is the
political principle of the separation of the executive power (the
administration) from the legislative; despotism is that of the autonomous
execution by the state of laws which it has itself decreed. Thus in a despotism
the public will is administered by the ruler as his own will. Of the three
forms of the state, that of democracy is, properly speaking, necessarily a
despotism, because it establishes an executive power in which "all"
decide for or even against one who does not agree; that is, "all,"
who are not quite all, decide, and this is a contradiction of the general will
with itself and with freedom.

Every form of government which is not representative is, properly speaking,
without form. The legislator can unite in one and the same person his function
as legislative and as executor of his will just as little as the universal of
the major premise in a syllogism can also be the subsumption of the particular
under the universal in the minor. And even though the other two constitutions
are always defective to the extent that they do leave room for this mode of
administration, it is at least possible for them to assume a mode of government
conforming to the spirit of a representative system (as when Frederick II at
least said he was merely the first servant of the state).5
On the other hand, the democratic mode of government makes this impossible,
since everyone wishes to be master. Therefore, we can say: the smaller the
personnel of the government (the smaller the number of rulers), the greater is
their representation and the more nearly the constitution approaches to the
possibility of republicanism; thus the constitution may be expected by gradual
reform finally to raise itself to republicanism. For these reasons it is more
difficult for an aristocracy than for a monarchy to achieve the one completely
juridical constitution, and it is impossible for a democracy to do so except by
violent revolution.

The mode of governments,6 however, is
incomparably more important to the people than the form of sovereignty,
although much depends on the greater or lesser suitability of the latter to the
end of [good] government. To conform to the concept of law, however, government
must have a representative form, and in this system only a republican mode of
government is possible; without it, government is despotic and arbitrary,
whatever the constitution may be. None of the ancient so-called
"republics" knew this system, and they all finally and inevitably
degenerated into despotism under the sovereignty of one, which is the most
bearable of all forms of despotism.

SECOND DEFINITIVE ARTICLE FOR A PERPETUAL PEACE

"The Law of Nations Shall be Founded on a Federation
of Free States";

Peoples, as states, like individuals, may be judged to injure one another
merely by their coexistence in the state of nature (i.e., while independent of
external laws). Each of then, may and should for the sake of its own security
demand that the others enter with it into a constitution similar to the civil
constitution, for under such a constitution each can be secure in his right.
This would be a league of nations, but it would not have to be a state
consisting of nations. That would be contradictory, since a state implies the
relation of a superior (legislating) to an inferior (obeying), i.e., the
people, and many nations in one state would then constitute only one nation.
This contradicts the presupposition, for here we have to weigh the rights of
nations against each other so far as they are distinct states and not
amalgamated into one.

When we see the attachment of savages to their lawless freedom, preferring
ceaseless combat to subjection to a lawful constraint which they might
establish, and thus preferring senseless freedom to rational freedom, we regard
it with deep contempt as barbarity, rudeness, and a brutish degradation of
humanity. Accordingly, one would think that civilized people (each united in a
state) would hasten all the more to escape, the sooner the better, from such a
depraved condition. But, instead, each state places its majesty (for it is
absurd to speak of the majesty of the people) in being subject to no external
juridical restraint, and the splendor of its sovereign consists in the fact
that many thousands stand at his command to sacrifice themselves for something
that does not concern them and without his needing to place himself in the
least danger.7 The chief difference between
European and American savages lies in the fact that many tribes of the latter
have been eaten by their enemies, while the former know how to make better use
of their conquered enemies than to dine off them; they know better how to use
them to increase the number of their subjects and thus the quantity of
instruments for even more extensive wars.

When we consider the perverseness of human nature which is nakedly revealed
in the uncontrolled relations between nations (this perverseness being veiled
in the state of civil law by the constraint exercised by government), we may
well be astonished that the word "law" has not yet been banished from
war politics as pedantic, and that no state has yet been bold enough to
advocate this point of view. Up to the present, Hugo Grotius, Pufendorf,
Vattel, and many other irritating comforters have been cited in justification
of war, though their code, philosophically or diplomatically formulated, has
not and cannot have the least legal force, because states as such do not stand
under a common external power. There is no instance on record that a state has
ever been moved to desist from its purpose because of arguments backed up by
the testimony of such great men. But the homage which each state pays (at least
in words) to the concept of law proves that there is slumbering in man an even
greater moral disposition to become master of the evil principle in himself
(which he cannot disclaim) and to hope for the same from others. Otherwise the
word "law" would never be pronounced by states which wish to war upon
one another; it would be used only ironically, as a Gallic prince interpreted
it when he said, "It is the prerogative which nature has given the
stronger that the weaker should obey him."

States do not plead their cause before a tribunal; war alone is their way of
bringing suit. But by war and its favorable issue, in victory, right is not
decided, and though by a treaty of peace this particular war is brought to an
end, the state of war, of always finding a new pretext to hostilities, is not
terminated. Nor can this be declared wrong, considering the fact that in this
state each is the judge of his own case. Notwithstanding, the obligation which
men in a lawless condition have under the natural law, and which requires them
to abandon the state of nature, does not quite apply to states under the law of
nations, for as states they already have an internal juridical constitution and
have thus outgrown compulsion from others to submit to a more extended lawful
constitution according to their ideas of right. This is true in spite of the
fact that reason, from its throne of supreme moral legislating authority,
absolutely condemns war as a legal recourse and makes a state of peace a direct
duty, even though peace cannot be established or secured except by a compact
among nations.

For these reasons there must be a league of a particular kind, which can be
called a league of peace (foedus pacificum), and which would be
distinguished from a treaty of peace (pactum pacis) by the fact that the
latter terminates only one war, while the former seeks to make an end of all
wars forever. This league does not tend to any dominion over the power of the
state but only to the maintenance and security of the freedom of the state
itself and of other states in league with it, without there being any need for
them to submit to civil laws and their compulsion, as men in a state of nature
must submit.

The practicability (objective reality) of this idea of federation, which
should gradually spread to all states and thus lead to perpetual peace, can be
proved. For if fortune directs that a powerful and enlightened people can make
itself a republic, which by its nature must be inclined to perpetual peace,
this gives a fulcrum to the federation with other states so that they may
adhere to it and thus secure freedom under the idea of the law of nations. By
more and more such associations, the federation may be gradually extended.

We may readily conceive that a people should say, "There ought to be no
war among us, for we want to make ourselves into a state; that is, we want to
establish a supreme legislative, executive, and judiciary power which will
reconcile our differences peaceably." But when this state says,
"There ought to be no war between myself and other states, even though I
acknowledge no supreme legislative power by which our rights are mutually
guaranteed," it is not at all clear on what I can base my confidence in my
own rights unless it is the free federation, the surrogate of the civil social
order, which reason necessarily associates with the concept of the law of
nations — assuming that something is really meant by the latter.

The concept of a law of nations as a right to make war does not really mean
anything, because it is then a law of deciding what is right by unilateral
maxims through force and not by universally valid public laws which restrict
the freedom of each one. The only conceivable meaning of such a law of nations
might be that it serves men right who are so inclined that they should destroy
each other and thus find perpetual peace in the vast grave that swallows both
the atrocities and their perpetrators. For states in their relation to each
other, there cannot be any reasonable way out of the lawless condition which
entails only war except that they, like individual men, should give up their
savage (lawless) freedom, adjust themselves to the constraints of public law,
and thus establish a continuously growing state consisting of various nations
(civitas gentium), which will ultimately include all the nations of the
world. But under the idea of the law of nations they do not wish this, and
reject in practice what is correct in theory. If all is not to be lost, there
can be, then, in place of the positive idea of a world republic, only the
negative surrogate of an alliance which averts war, endures, spreads, and holds
back the stream of those hostile passions which fear the law, though such an
alliance is in constant peril of their breaking loose again.8Furor impius intus . . . fremit horridus ore
cruento (Virgil).

THIRD DEFINITIVE ARTICLE FOR A PERPETUAL PEACE

"The Law of World Citizenship Shall Be Limited to
Conditions of Universal Hospitality";

Here, as in the preceding articles, it is not a question of philanthropy but
of right. Hospitality means the right of a stranger not to be treated as an
enemy when he arrives in the land of another. One may refuse to receive him
when this can be done without causing his destruction; but, so long as he
peacefully occupies his place, one may not treat him with hostility. It is not
the right to be a permanent visitor that one may demand. A special beneficent
agreement would be needed in order to give an outsider a right to become a
fellow inhabitant for a certain length of time. It is only a right of temporary
sojourn, a right to associate, which all men have. They have it by virtue of
their common possession of the surface of the earth, where, as a globe, they
cannot infinitely disperse and hence must finally tolerate the presence of each
other. Originally, no one had more right than another to a particular part of
the earth.

Uninhabitable parts of the earth — the sea and the deserts —
divide this community of all men, but the ship and the camel (the desert ship)
enable them to approach each other across these unruled regions and to
establish communication by using the common right to the face of the earth,
which belongs to human beings generally. The inhospitality of the inhabitants
of coasts (for instance, of the Barbary Coast) in robbing ships in neighboring
seas or enslaving stranded travelers, or the inhospitality of the inhabitants
of the deserts (for instance, the Bedouin Arabs) who view contact with nomadic
tribes as conferring the right to plunder them, is thus opposed to natural law,
even though it extends the right of hospitality, i.e., the privilege of foreign
arrivals, no further than to conditions of the possibility of seeking to
communicate with the prior inhabitants. In this way distant parts of the world
can come into peaceable relations with each other, and these are finally
publicly established by law. Thus the human race can gradually be brought
closer and closer to a constitution establishing world citizenship.

But to this perfection compare the inhospitable actions of the civilized and
especially of the commercial states of our part of the world. The injustice
which they show to lands and peoples they visit (which is equivalent to
conquering them) is carried by them to terrifying lengths. America, the lands
inhabited by the Negro, the Spice Islands, the Cape, etc., were at the time of
their discovery considered by these civilized intruders as lands without
owners, for they counted the inhabitants as nothing. In East India (Hindustan),
under the pretense of establishing economic undertakings, they brought in
foreign soldiers and used them to oppress the natives, excited widespread wars
among the various states, spread famine, rebellion, perfidy, and the whole
litany of evils which afflict mankind.

China9 and Japan (Nippon), who have had
experience with such guests, have wisely refused them entry, the former
permitting their approach to their shores but not their entry, while the latter
permit this approach to only one European people, the Dutch, but treat them
like prisoners, not allowing them any communication with the inhabitants. The
worst of this (or, to speak with the moralist, the best) is that all these
outrages profit them nothing, since all these commercial ventures stand on the
verge of collapse, and the Sugar Islands, that place of the most refined and
cruel slavery, produces no real revenue except indirectly, only serving a not
very praiseworthy purpose of furnishing sailors for war fleets and thus for the
conduct of war in Europe. This service is rendered to powers which make a great
show of their piety, and, while they drink injustice like water, they regard
themselves as the elect in point of orthodoxy.

Since the narrower or wider community of the peoples of the earth has
developed so far that a violation of rights in one place is felt throughout the
world, the idea of a law of world citizenship is no high-flown or exaggerated
notion. It is a supplement to the unwritten code of the civil and international
law, indispensable for the maintenance of the public human rights and hence
also of perpetual peace. One cannot flatter oneself into believing one can
approach this peace except under the condition outlined here.

Notes

1. A hereditary kingdom is not a state
which can be inherited by another state, but the right to govern it can be
inherited by another physical person. The state thereby acquires a ruler, but
he, as a ruler (i.e., as one already possessing another realm), does not
acquire the state.

2. It has not without cause hitherto been
doubted whether besides the commands (leges praeceptivae) and
prohibitions (leges prohibitivae) there could also be permissive laws
(leges permissivae) of pure reason. For laws as such contain a principle
of objective practical necessity, while permission implies a principle of the
practical contingency of certain actions. Hence a law of permission would imply
constraint to an action to do that to which no one can be constrained. If the
object of the law has the same meaning in both cases, this is a contradiction.
But in permissive law, which is in question here, the prohibition refers only
to the future mode of acquisition of a right (e.g., by succession), while the
permission annuls this prohibition only with reference to the present
possession. This possession, though only putative, may be held to be just
(possessio putative) in the transition from the state of nature to a
civil state, by virtue of a permissive law included under natural law, even
though it is [strictly] illegal. But, as soon as it is recognized as illegal in
the state of nature, a similar mode of acquisition in the subsequent civil
state (after this transition has occurred) is forbidden, and this right to
continuing possession would not hold if such a presumptive acquisition had
taken place in the civil state. For in this case it would be an infringement
which would have to cease as soon as its illegality was discovered.

I have wished only to call the attention of the teachers of
natural law to the concept of a lex permissive, which systematic reason
affords, particularly since in civil (statute) law use is often made of it. But
in the ordinary use of it, there is this difference: prohibitive law stands
alone, while permission is not introduced into it as a limiting condition (as
it should be) but counted among the exceptions to it. Then it is said,
"This or that is forbidden, except Nos. 1, 2, 3," and so on
indefinitely. These exceptions are added to the law only as an afterthought
required by our groping around among cases as they arise, and not by any
principle. Otherwise the conditions would have had to be introduced into the
formula of the prohibition, and in this way it would itself have become a
permissive law. It is, therefore, unfortunate that the subtle question proposed
by the wise and acute Count von Windischgrätz was never answered and soon
consigned to oblivion, because it insisted on the point here discussed. For the
possibility of a formula similar to those of mathematics is the only legitimate
criterion of a consistent legislation, and without it the so-called ius
certum must always remain a pious wish. Otherwise we shall have merely
general laws (which apply to a great number of cases), but no universal laws
(which apply to all cases) as the concept of law seems to requires.

3. We ordinarily assume that no one may act
inimically toward another except when he has been actively injured by the
other. This is quite correct if both are under civil law, for, by entering into
such a state, they afford each other the requisite security through the
sovereign which has power over both. Man (or the people) in the state of nature
deprives me of this security and injures me, if he is near me, by this mere
status of his, even though he does not injure me actively (facto); he does so
by the lawlessness of his condition (statu iniusto) which constantly
threatens me. Therefore, I can compel him either to enter with me into a state
of civil law or to remove himself from my neighborhood. The postulate which is
basic to all the following articles is: All men who can reciprocally influence
each other must stand under some civil constitution.

Every juridical constitution which concerns the person who
stands under it is one of the following:

(1) The constitution conforming to the civil law of men in a
nation (ius civitatis).

(2) The constitution conforming to the law of nations in
their relation to one another (ius gentium).

(3) The constitution conforming to the law of world
citizenship, so far as men and states are considered as citizens of a universal
state of men, in their external mutual relationships (ius
cosmopoliticum).

This division is not arbitrary, being necessary in relation
to the idea of perpetual peace. For if only one state were related to another
by physical influence and were yet in a state of nature, war would necessarily
follow, and our purpose here is precisely to free ourselves of war.

4. Juridical (and hence) external freedom
cannot be defined, as is usual, by the privilege of doing anything one wills so
long as he does not injure another. For what is a privilege? It is the
possibility of an action so far as one does not injure anyone by it. Then the
definition would read: Freedom is the possibility of those actions by which one
does no one an injury. One does another no injury (he may do as he pleases)
only if he does another no injury — an empty tautology. Rather, my
external (juridical) freedom is to be defined as follows: It is the privilege
to lend obedience to no external laws except those to which I could have given
consent. Similarly, external (juridical) equality in a state is that
relationship among the citizens in which no one can lawfully bind another
without at the same time subjecting himself to the law by which he also can be
bound. No definition of juridical dependence is needed, as this already lies in
the concept of a state's constitution as such.

The validity of these inborn rights, which are inalienable
and belong necessarily to humanity, is raised to an even higher level by the
principle of the juridical relation of man to higher beings, for, if he
believes in them, he regards himself by the same principles as a citizen of a
supersensuous world. For in what concerns my freedom, I have no obligation with
respect to divine law, which can be acknowledged by my reason alone, except in
so far as I could have given my consent to it. Indeed, it is only through the
law of freedom of my own reason that I frame a concept of the divine will. With
regard to the most sublime reason in the world that I can think of, with the
exception of God — say, the great Aeon — when I do my duty in my post
as he does in his, there is no reason under the law of equality why obedience
to duty should fall only to me and the right to command only to him. The reason
why this principle of equality does not pertain to our relation to God (as the
principle of freedom does) is that this Being is the only one to which the
concept of duty does not apply.

But with respect to the right of equality of all citizens as
subjects, the question of whether a hereditary nobility may be tolerated turns
upon the answer to the question as to whether the pre-eminent rank granted by
the state to one citizen over another ought to precede merit or follow it. Now
it is obvious that, if rank is associated with birth, it is uncertain whether
merit (political skill and integrity) will also follow; hence it would be as if
a favorite without any merit were given command. The general will of the people
would never agree to this in the original contract, which is the principle of
all law, for a nobleman is not necessarily a noble man. With regard to the
nobility of office (as we might call the rank of the higher magistracy) which
one must earn by merit, this rank does not belong to the person as his
property; it belongs to his post, and equality is not thereby infringed,
because when a man quits his office he renounces the rank it confers and
re-enters into the class of his fellows.

5. The lofty epithets of "the Lord's
anointed...... the executor of the divine will on earth," and "the
vicar of God," which have been lavished on sovereigns, have been
frequently censured as crude and intoxicating flatteries. But this seems to me
without good reason. Far from inspiring a monarch with pride, they should
rather render him humble, providing he possesses some intelligence (which we
must assume). They should make him reflect that he has taken an office too
great for man, an office which is the holiest God has ordained on earth, to be
the trustee of the rights of men, and that he must always stand in dread of
having in some way injured this "apple of God's eye."

6. Mallet du Pan, in his pompous but empty
and hollow language, pretends to have become convinced, after long experience,
of the truth of Pope's well-known saying:

"For forms of
government let fools contest:
Whate'er is best administered, is best."

If that means that the best-administered state is the state
that is best administered, he has, to make use of Swift's expression,
"cracked a nut to come at a maggot." But if it means that the
best-administered state also has the best mode of government, i.e., the best
constitution, then it is thoroughly wrong, for examples of good governments
prove nothing about the form of government. Whoever reigned better than a Titus
and a Marcus Aurelius? Yet one was succeeded by a Domitian and the other by a
Commodus. This could never have happened under a good constitution, for their
unworthiness for this post was known early enough and also the power of the
ruler was sufficient to have excluded them.

7. A Bulgarian prince gave the following
answer to the Greek emperor who good-naturedly suggested that they settle their
difference by a duel: "A smith who has tongs won't pluck the glowing iron
from the fire with his bare hands."

8. It would not ill become a people that
has just terminated a war to decree, besides a day of thanksgiving, a day of
fasting in order to ask heaven, in the name of the state, for forgiveness for
the great iniquity which the human race still goes on to perpetuate in refusing
to submit to a lawful constitution in their relation to other peoples,
preferring, from pride in their independence, to make use of the barbarous
means of war even though they are not able to attain what is sought, namely,
the rights of a single state. The thanksgiving for victory won during the war,
the hymns which are sung to the God of Hosts (in good Israelitic manner), stand
in equally sharp contrast to the moral idea of the Father of Men. For they not
only show a sad enough indifference to the way in which nations seek their
rights, but in addition express a joy in having annihilated a multitude of men
or their happiness.

9. To call this great empire by the name it
gives itself, namely "China" and not "Sina" or anything
like that, we have only to refer to [A.] Georgi, Alphabetum Tibetanum,
pp. 651-54, especially note b. According to the note of Professor [Johann
Eberhard] Fischer of Petersburg, there is no definite word used in that country
as its name; the most usual word is "Kin," i.e., gold (which the
Tibetans call "Ser"). Accordingly, the emperor is called "the
king of gold," that is, king of the most splendid country in the world. In
the empire itself, this word may be pronounced Chin, while because of
the 'guttural sound the Italian missionaries may have called it Kin.
— It is clear that what the Romans called the "Land of Seres"
was China; the silk, however, was sent to Europe across Greater Tibet (through
Lesser Tibet, Bukhara, Persia, and then on).

This suggests many reflections concerning the antiquity of
this wonderful state, in comparison with that of Hindustan at the time of its
union with Tibet and thence with Japan. We see, on the contrary, that the name
"Sina" or "Tshina," said to have been used by the neighbors
of the country, suggests nothing.

Perhaps we can also explain the very ancient but never
well-known intercourse of Europe with Tibet by considering the shout, ('Konx
Ompax'), of the hierophants in the Eleusinian mysteries, as we learn from
Hysichius (cf. Travels of the Young Anacharsis, Part V, p. 447 ff.).
For, according to Georgi, op. cit., the word Concoia means God,
which has a striking resemblance to Konx. Pah-cio (ibid., 520),
which the Greeks may well have pronounced pax, means the promulgator
legis, divinity pervading the whole of nature (also called Cencresi,
p. 177). Om, however, which La Croze translates as benedictus
("blessed"), when applied to divinity perhaps means "the
beatified" (p. 507). P. Franz Orazio often asked the Lamas of Tibet what
they understood by "God" (Concoia) and always got the answer,
"It is the assembly of saints" (i.e., the assembly of the blessed
ones who, according to the doctrine of rebirth, finally, after many wanderings
through bodies of all kinds, have returned to God, or Burchane; that is
to say, they are transmigrated souls, beings to be worshiped, p. 223). That
mysterious expression Konx Ompax may well mean "the holy"
(Konx), the blessed (Om), the wise (Pax), the supreme
being pervading the world (nature personified). Its use in the Greek mysteries
may indicate monotheism among the epopts in contrast to the polytheism of the
people (though Orazio scented atheism there). How that mysterious word came to
the Greeks via Tibet can perhaps be explained in this way; and the early
traffic of Europe with China, also through Tibet, and perhaps earlier than
communication with Hindustan, is made probable.